It’s great that they’re making such a difference. It’s a crime that it took so long and that the problem got to be so bad before they were called in to help.
Last year, food banks had to step up to help hundreds of families when the recession and a meltdown of Texas’ food stamp application process caused them to miss out on months’ worth of benefits.
Now, food banks and pantries in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio are doing it again as the state works, under federal orders, to reduce backlogs and improve service at the offices where it determines if Texans are eligible for aid.
The need is still evident. Hungry, desperate people are flocking daily to Metrocrest Social Services, a food pantry in Carrollton’s central business district.
[…]
One of every eight Texans is receiving food stamps. The onslaught of need walloped a state food stamp application process already listing from hurricanes, a failed privatization effort and cuts to the state eligibility workforce five years ago.
Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Tom Suehs took over last fall, when rapid turnover and chaos at state offices thwarted thousands of eligible Texans from getting benefits, often for months at a time. He seized on a 4-year-old arrangement, under which the food banks take applications. The initial case work being done by food banks’ outreach workers was pretty good, Suehs said, so why not pay them to do more?
Read the whole thing. First, kudos to Tom Suehs for making as much progress on this as he has, in just over a month. Frankly, we’d probably be no further along if it weren’t for Suehs and for the threat of federal sanctions for the state doing such a lousy job of this. And read that first sentence in the penultimate paragraph again. When Rick Perry talks about how well Texas is doing compared to other places, he’s not speaking to or about those one-in-eight people. Lord knows, he did nothing to help them.